


the smallest star

by runakvaed (Nordbo)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabble Collection, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, i don't know what i'm doing anymore, the sad baby fic that somehow turned kinda happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordbo/pseuds/runakvaed
Summary: Another little girl unwillingly abandoned by her father. Jyn swears the same will never be true by her mother.---Originally four connected drabbles for Rebelcaptain Appreciation Week on the themes family, comfort, home and future, I was encouraged to post these on here as well.





	1. Family

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, thank you to everyone who left me such nice comments on tumblr and suggested I post these drabbles on here as well! As I am quite new in this game, concrit is much appreciated.

Soft dark hair and skin an obviously warmer shade than hers underneath the pink tinge. Another little girl unwillingly abandoned by her father. Jyn swears the same will never be true by her mother.

Sometimes she wonders if there’s parts of a soul that’s inheritable. If his loyalty and dedication to his beliefs will be genetically gifted onto her child. She wants them to be their own person, of course, but still. It would be nice. The world could use more people like that.

(He never knew. The last time she saw him, she hadn’t even known herself.)

Tiny eyes open to stare up at her; her newborn’s eyes are dark brown and as deep as she remembers seeing the same eyes nearly seven months ago. Jyn can’t help but thank the force for this small gift. She’s going to have his eyes, her beautiful baby girl. She’ll get to see them every day, when she was afraid she would forget the nuances in time. It’s another memory brought to life. An echo of the family they could have had. He is one with the force, but the force is with them.

She hums a tune she vaguely remembers from her brief childhood, all thoughts of family centering around the small soul in her arms, gurgling at her as if to express an appreciation for the quiet melody. If this is the last piece she’ll ever have of him, no one is going to take it from her.

 _We’ll be alright_ , she thinks, as her daughter settles on her chest. _We are strong. We have hope_. Even if the world took him away, no one can take that from them.

 

\------------

 

”You’ve made contact?”

”Yes, general. We can bring him in whenever.” The aide hands him a folder of flimsis containing mission briefs dating back almost seven months; operations like this one is far too important to be kept on the servers. Too risky.

Draven looks back down at his datapad, considering the updated list of non-military personnel on the base.

_Lyra Andor._

“It’s no hurry.”


	2. Comfort

There's something about the rumble in the hallways closest to the hanger that calms Lyra down. It's one of many random discoveries Jyn's made over the last three weeks, walking Echo base with her wriggly infant daughter in a sling across her chest, trying to escape a room that still lacks the warmth of the man who should have been here with them. Bodhi says it's just Hoth's temperatures fluctuating. Jyn knows it's not.

But in fact, she's lucky to have a room to herself. Space is sparse, and she knows of at least one other woman on base with a small child who still has to bunk with a roommate. Months ago, when she had to admit to herself that this wasn't just a stomach bug that would go away soon, she'd been assigned  _his_  old quarters. Draven's signature on the orders. Well intended or not, it had still felt like yet another attempt from the general to kick her while she was down.

His blue parka had been left in the back of the closet, and she had wanted to rip it to shreds, _how dare he_. Now it felt like a comfort, wrapped tightly around her and Lyra, embracing them both when he couldn't. Lyra’s slept on it more than once. At this point it’s unrealistic of Jyn to expect any traces of his smell to be left behind in the soft lining, but she can hope.

Lyra deserves any little piece of her papa that she can have. Like his scent, his name. Like words in the night that Jyn never learned the translations for, but still understood the meaning behind. Even if Jyn has to pry it from the cold, uncaring hands of the universe, she will damn well do so. For her daughter.

The baby makes a tiny noise and smacks her lips together, probably in response to the louder than average rumble of another craft taking off in the hanger just beyond the wall to their left. Jyn strokes the soft hairs on her head, and lets her suck on one of her fingers.

“Erso.”

Jyn spins around; she swears the hallway was empty just seconds ago, but somehow the general has managed to sneak up on her. Spies are quiet by nature, after all. Or Jyn just needs more sleep (though Lyra might have other opinions on that).

“Sir.”

Lyra gurgles. There’s something uneasy in Draven’s eyes, in a way that’s vastly different from usually stoic general, but still reminds her of the time he came to tell her abo–

“Sergeant Erso, I’d like to have a word with you. 0900 tomorrow, my office. It would be beneficial if you were to make arrangements for your child.”

Draven always seems especially uncomfortable when Lyra’s in the vicinity. She’ll have to ask Bodhi to take care of her tomorrow morning.

“Alright. Sir.”

He stands there for another moment observing her with that _look_ , before he turns on his heel and leaves her alone in the hallway.

Lyra wriggles again, and Jyn wonders what could be important enough for a general to search out a sergeant on maternity leave to arrange a meeting himself.

The walls rumble as another transport takes off from the hanger…

 

\-----------------

 

An alliance transport coming in from Hoth picks him up on the outskirts of Xozhixi on Thyferra, more tired than he remembers ever being in his entire life. Seven months is a long time to be someone else. It's not that he hasn't been on longer assignments in the past, but he's also never had anything to come back home to before. (Or _anyone_ , as is the case. He hopes.)

The ensign on the loading ramp looks at him oddly as he climbs onboard the ship. He hasn’t had a proper haircut in nearly six months, and he’s undoubtedly in need of a shave; he can’t blame the man for the doubting looks.

“Captain Andor?”

Cassian nods at the man, drops his bag and pushes it under a bench with a quick foot.

“Message from General Draven. He said you ought to read it ASAP.”

The ensign holds out a datapad for him, an older unsecured model. So, obviously not mission related then. Cassian realizes belatedly that the looks the man is shooting him aren’t doubtful, they’re… uncertain. Hesitant.

“Thank you, ensign.” The man scurries off to the cockpit, and Cassian sits down heavily on the bench.

As he flicks on the datapad, he sees his own personnel records pop up on the screen and wonders how that could possibly be considered an urgent message.

Until he clicks open a tab he’s sure never used to be there before, and finds _exactly_ what Draven wanted him to see.


	3. Home

Shapes, moving past her in the hall. Lights blinking, stamped snow crunching under her boots. The world has simultaneously faded away and become so, so much more. The hallway blurs out, the little details, rustling of clothes, voices passing by her, is magnified by a thousand.

_…in transit now…_

Jyn stumbles through the door of her quarters, unsure of how she got there. It’s like she’s become untethered from her own body, released into the universe yet tied down to this very room.

The whine of her daughter and Bodhi’s slightly panicked greeting is what finally brings her all the way back to reality.

“Jyn, I swear she was being quiet till just now, I’m sorry I-I do-don’t… Jyn?”

She has _no_ idea what to say.

“Did the meeting go alright? What did the general want?” Bodhi’s timid voice almost makes her feel bad, but she has yet to find her voice.

 

_“There were complications upon the descent to Thyferra, as you are well aware, sergeant.”_

_“Yes. Engine failure.”_

_Draven had told her himself. Engine failure, surface crash, no survivors. She remembers the feeling of needles pushing at her lungs from the inside well enough._

_“In a way, yes.” Jyn has never seen the general look apologetic, but his face is inching closer to something that looks almost remorseful now._

_“Engine sabotage would be the more correct term, discovered upon entry into Thyferra’s atmosphere,” he stands up, goes to retrieve a folder from a side table. “It was a quick judgment call. We believed the mission to be compromised, possible from within. It was paramount that we not reveal our suspicions, and so, Captain Andor had to die in a crash caused by an engine failure, nothing more.”_

_Jyn feels nothing by the ice of Hoth slowly creeping into her veins. Draven is raffling through flimsies in the folder, and apparently finding what he was looking for, hands her a single sheet without looking her in the eye._

_Silence. Draven says nothing for a moment, let’s the personnel memo on the flimsi do all the talking for him._

_“I’m sure you can understand, given the severity of the situation, why Captain Andor was not informed of… developing circumstances on base. He will be updated upon extraction.”_

 

Instead of answering Bodi, Jyn holds out a crumpled piece of flimsi she’s been holding on to much too tightly all the way back from Draven’s office.

“What’s that?”

Lyra’s still fussing in her crib as Bodhi uncrumples the flimsi, reads the memo, and then promptly drops it on the floor.

When she finally regains the power of speech, Jyn doesn’t even know if she’s talking to Bodhi, her daughter, or herself.

“He’s… he’s coming _home_.”

 

\------------------

 

The decent into Hoth’s atmosphere wakes Cassian from a fitful sleep; Half-dreams of hidden softness and a warm breath mingling with his own in a cold room. Green eyes that’s been the first thing he missed in the morning for nearly eight months now.

_Jyn._

_Home_.

Home has a different meaning now. An altogether strange feeling he can’t define. A different sort of longing he’s never felt before.

_…Lyra._

The transport bumps and the datapad he had clutched in his sleep almost slips onto the floor.

“Sorry about the turbulence, winds are a bit strong this side of the base.”

Cassian dimly recognizes the co-pilot, walking back into the hold where he’s been sleeping.

“You awake there, Captain?”

Is he really awake? Maybe he _did_ die months ago, but he can’t think of anything he’s ever done to deserve an afterlife of what’s apparently waiting for him on base. He never believed in any sort of afterlife anyway.

“How far out?” he answers instead.

“Should be there any moment now, when we get the OK from control.”

There’s something that feels like a bubble of breath stuck in Cassian’s throat. It won’t come loose, it hasn’t for hours. Not even the rattle of the transport landing in the hanger of Echo base can make it go away.

The ramp opens to the familiar rustle and bustle of people going about their daily business, and Cassian feels almost lost in a strange sea of uniforms. He walks out, searching the sea for the island he’s missed for too long, not even registering the strange looks tossed his way.

She has to be here _somewhere_. She _has to_. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she isn’t.

The sea parts, and he realizes he was wrong; she’s not an island. She is the celestial body that moves the waters. Stardust shines in her eyes as she moves towards him.

He drops his bag as she rushes him, catching her in his arms, and the bubble in his throat bursts with one name.

“Jyn.”

_Home_.

Home is her face pressed into the side of his neck, breathing out his name, warm perspiration across his cold skin. Home is her hands on his face pulling him down, drawing his lips towards hers, a softness that puts his memories to shame. Home is the feeling of her small stature pressed against him as well as she can under several layers, the topmost blue, lined in fur, and very recognizable.

She pulls back from him, and gives him a once-over. “Your hair is too long.”

“I missed you too,” bursts out of him in a laugh, and he presses his mouth to her own smiling one again. It’s then he realizes that there’s one small part (a new part) of home that’s still missing. He searches Jyn for the tiny star that should be orbiting her, but comes up empty.

She sees the look, and there’s joy in her eyes when she grabs his hand and pulls him along.

“Come on.”


	4. Future

Strange thing, to look into your own eyes in someone else’s face, and have everything that seemed so important to you before cease to matter.

He remembers Jyn pulling him into a room (his room?), and handing him a squirming bundle, but from there it’s all muddled.

His lower back is starting to hurt from being in the same position for too long, sitting on the bunk, back to the wall, knees up in front of him, but he _can’t move_. The pain barely even registers as more than a dull discomfort, blocked out by the sounds of tiny little gurgles and a breath so very slight he should not even hear it as clearly as he does. He’s holding _his daughter_ in his arms, and she’s _so_ _small._

Cassian has seen a lot of things in a relatively short life that feels decades longer than it should. Stars that whoosh by like nothing. White boots on filthy snow, explosions, fires no rainstorms could ever put out. Warm hands ripped away from his own small ones much too soon. Blood. His mother’s dark eyes, cold and lifeless in a way that was unfathomable to a six-year old.

He has the same eyes as his mother. His daughter has the same eyes as him, but so… alive. _Innocent_. Sparkling and curious from the moment she was handed to him, almost like she (a _tiny_ baby) could recognize the longing in him, and had a primal urge to fulfil it. He knows that there’s no way that’s possible, knows it intellectually, but it doesn’t matter; there’s an instant link, souls claiming each other.

If there ever was a promise he would make to her, it would be that she would never have to see the things he’s seen, would never have to feel so old.

Lyra. _Daughter_. Her pudgy little hand moves up towards his mouth, she’s _so_ close to him, like a greeting. _Welcome home_ , like she’s been waiting for him as well. He runs a finger down the side of her little face, and she grabs on to that instead.

The bunk moves next to him with the weight of someone settling down; Jyn rests her head on his shoulder and looks down at their baby girl.

“She likes you.”

Lyra makes a sound that’s almost like a giggle, a confirmation of her mother’s words. Cassian remains speechless.

“But I don’t see why she wouldn’t. She looks more like you than she does me.”

He can hear the smile in her voice, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the precious being in his arms. The last time anyone looked like him, _really_ looked like him, was so many years ago, and his clearest memories of that time is still a haze of smoke, winter storms and fire. (And dark, dead eyes.)

He wants to make new memories with _them_. Jyn and Lyra. Memories of sunshine, starlight, and _life_.

“She doesn’t know me,” Cassian all but whispers.

“She will.”

She says it like it’s a prophecy carved in stone, an unbreakable promise, like no one is going to prevent Jyn Erso from taking anything and everything her family needs, and he believes her.

Lyra snuggles into his chest, as if seeking to assure him, and Jyn’s hand falls on top of his own, still clutched by Lyra’s little fingers. Dark eyes close as she drifts off into sleep, but this time he knows he will see those same eyes open again.

_Tiny star._

She sleeps in his arms, and Cassian finally feels at home.

 

\-------------------

 

Jyn has been living in the now for so many years, it’s hard to imagine what having a future must be like, but she’s sure it must feel something like this.

Cassian, solid, safe, and _there_ , holding their daughter close like nothing has ever mattered more to him. Jyn lifts her head from his shoulder and cups his jaw with her hand, turning his face towards her.

“She _will_ know you. I know she will.”

Gratitude is written all over his face, and it echoes inside of her.

“Thank you, Jyn. _Thank you_.”

Jyn knows he’s not just talking about her words just now, and in that moment, she thinks maybe she can see their whole future in his eyes.

She doesn’t yet know that in the coming weeks, Cassian will refuse to let anyone else carry his daughter around, their baby safe in her sling across his chest.

She doesn’t yet know if he will be there or in some far distant corner of space when Lyra takes her first steps, says her first words.

She doesn’t yet know that she will be hauling a frightened toddler, crying for her papa, through Echo base when the Empire comes for them, and that they won’t find him till days later in a bacta tank onboard Home One.

She doesn’t yet know that she will see her daughter running through open fields in the sunshine, chasing her laughing papa, who will lift her up and spin her in the air.

Jyn doesn’t know the future. From where she’s sitting on her bunk, Cassian and Lyra kept close to her, she can’t yet see either the good or the bad things that are imminent on the horizon. But the important thing is that there _is_ a horizon at all.

She presses her lips softly to his, and their daughter sleeps peacefully between them.

“You still need a haircut though,” she quips, and the smile that breaks on his face is worth everything.

They _will_ have a future; the galaxy be damned if they don’t. That’s what she _does_ know, and that’s all she needs.


End file.
